Tage’s yell easily served its intended purpose. The Queen disengaged from Halp, sending a squinting glare in the girl’s direction. A moment later, and the weevil let out an angry chittering noise, before bounding towards Tage.
Tage remained in place until the last possible instant, before diving off towards the side, slipping past the Queen’s claws by scant inches. This caused the weevil to land heavily on the trussed figure, forcing a sharp “oof” from between the purple djinni's lips. Almost as though she recognized him, the Weevil Queen began to chirr in excitement.
The void mage let out one last, pitiable cry as the Queen turned against her former captor, and Tage winced slightly. For one moment, this on-the-fly “punishment” she’d created almost felt too cruel.
However, the thoughts were wiped from her mind when a laughing Halp slapped her cheerfully on the back. “Good thinking,” the boy praised. “Serves him right.”
Tage nodded and offered a small smile at Halp’s praise, before glancing in Ripley’s direction. The young wizard was watching her calmly, clearly unperturbed by the direction the fight had taken. Satisfying herself that she was just overreacting, Tage turned her attention back to the task on hand. The fight wasn’t over yet.
"Ripley, circle around, block the entrance and, if you can, try and shield us from her attacks. Halp, you've got a moment to prepare. Take it. As soon as she's done with the mage, we'll tag-team her."
Ripley and Halp both nodded in response to her commands, and the three prepped themselves to finish off the fight.
It turned out that, despite her fearsome appearance and heavy blows, the weevil queen wasn't really that much stronger than the three of them. But she did provide the perfect opportunity to showcase exactly how comfortably Tage and Halp worked together, and how quickly they could incorporate someone else into their team. The two moved back and forth across the cave, with Tage using her quick maneuverability to lure the queen in to a place where Halp could strike a devastating blow, or Ripley could offer some sort of stun or crowd control. Even better was the fact that, whenever one of the two of them got backed into a corner, literally or metaphorically, Ripley was there to launch a sudden attack, and redirect her attention away from them, protecting them from what would have otherwise been a painful hit.
Together they chipped away at the Queen, working their way through two thirds of her health bar within a few minutes. However, right before her heath hit a quarter, the Queen suddenly froze in place, before letting out an ear-splitting shriek. Tage and Halp both winced unconsciously, staggering slightly as they suffered the stunning blow. Ripley, slightly further away, seemed to fare somewhat better from the attack, at least enough to launch another fireball, which interrupted the Weevil Queen’s scream.
Tage and Halp were quickly able to recover, and were about to jump back into the fight when they suddenly heard scurrying sounds coming from the walls. They shared a brief, worried glance, before simultaneously leaping at the Queen. The void djinni had clearly reinforced this cave to prevent the weevils from digging through the walls, but who knew what unexpected thing they might do now that their queen was in life-threatening danger.
After her scream, the Weevil Queen’s tactics changed, going from the previous aggressive, dominating attacks she’d performed before, to something a bit more sly. She slipped around the three players like oil, scratching at the walls, and frequently charging Ripley in an attempt to escape down the passage. Tage and Halp continually beat her back, watching as she grew more and more desperate, and her hits started coming faster and harder.
Right as Tage had lined up Halp so that he’d be able to strike the finishing blow the Queen suddenly rolled to the side, her body taking on an almost ethereal cast. She threw herself past the two, avoiding Halp’s axe and Tage’s dagger, before jumping past Ripley, form once more solidifying as she barreled between the broken doors.
Tage and Halp let out unconscious shouts of disappointment, only to suddenly see a fireball from Ripley striking her back. The Queen shuddered, before collapsing, her bulk sliding a couple of feet further down , slightly smoking.
For a moment Tage simply stared, slack-jawed, before she suddenly let out a whooping cheer, racing forwards to clap Ripley on the back. Halp charged forward a moment later, stopping just short of hugging the other player.
“Nice shootin’, Tex,” Tage praised. Had the queen managed to disappear into those tunnels, it was doubtful any of the three would have ever see her again. Only a skilled tracker could follow a weevil in its own burrow.
Coming down off the high of the fight, Tage let out a sigh of relief, cleaning off her two blades before sheathing them back at her waist. With the Weevil Queen dead, the scratching at the walls had ended too, dropping the cave into almost perfect silence.
Tage glanced off down the hallway at the Queen, whose body had already started to dissolve, transforming from demon flesh into drops. In this case, two drops, a faintly glowing green orb and the Weevil Queen Trophy. Tage went to scoop it up, while Halp searched the void djinni’s corpse.
“Not a bad collection of drops,” Tage commented once they’d gathered the stuff into the middle of the room. "The queen dropped an essence. Low level. And the mage had a staff, a poisoned dagger, and a few coins.”
“How should we split it?" Halp replied, eyeing the pile with excitement.
"Hmm…” Well, at least to Tage, the split seemed pretty obvious, especially based on their classes. “Why don't you take the coins, give Ripley the staff, and I'll take the essence and the dagger?"
"I seem to be getting the short end of that stick."
"In case you've forgotten, you'll get the reward from the baker as well. And I'm sure you'll get her undying gratitude when you give her the queen's trophy."
"Ahhh..." Halp swooned. "Good point."
Having cleared the cave, the group of three quickly made their way back to the surface, before jogging off towards Gabedon. Ripley and Tage had both equipped their new weapons, and Tage played with the slightly curved dagger on the walk back, waving it “gracefully” through the air while making accompanying whooshing noises.
Halp was more than happy to tease her for her childishness, even more so because he hadn’t gotten a new weapon out of the fight. However, when Tage returned his jabs with cheerful boasts about how her dagger was obviously so much better than his battleaxe, the two launched into a mock battle that carried them through the rest of the short walk to the edge of town.
They agreed to a tie upon arriving at the start of the buildings, sheathing their weapons to avoid rousing the displeasure of any passing guards. And a few moments after that, they were standing back in front of the white bakery.
Halp pushed his way through the door first, followed by Ripley and Tage, which set off a small bell. At the sound, a young ice-lightning-crystal Djinni with a curvy figure glanced up from where she’d been working behind the counter. Her pale blue skin was dusted slightly with flour, making her brilliant, aquamarine colored hair look at the brighter.
“Can I help y…” she began, before suddenly catching sight of Halp. “Halperion! Back so soon? Were you able to clear out some of the weevils?”
“Better than that!” Halp all but cheered, while Tage stepped back to lean against one wall and watch her friend get his reward. The death djinni dug around in his bag for a moment, before pulling out the weevil queen’s trophy. “I got rid of their queen. The weevils shouldn’t be bothering you anymore.” Halp grinned broadly, obviously proud of himself.
The baker’s eyes went wide at the sight of the trophy, and one hand lifted to cover her lips. “Oh! My goodness!” she said, momentarily stunned. "I... I don't know how to thank you! Those weevils have been causing me more trouble than you would believe."
She paced back and forth for a moment, before running to the back of the shop. A moment later and she came back out with a wrapped package, which she handed to Halp. Even from a distance, Tage could smell the syrupy sweet scent of freshly baked sugar rolls.
The baker dropped her eyes slightly as she approached Halp, the smallest of blushes staining her pale blue skin. "Um, it's not much, but I have this..." she mumbled as she walked up to Halp, offering the package - and as the warrior leaned forward to take it, she stepped up and planted a kiss on his cheek. The blush on her cheeks instantly grew as vivid a shade of pink as her eyes.
"My hero..."
There was a moment of stunned silence after the action of the baker, where it would have been possible to hear the drop of a pin. That was shattered a moment later as Halp's mouth fell open and his legs nearly collapsed from underneath him. Tage, watching from the background, nearly crumpled herself, desperately trying to contain her own laugher. The baker glanced in Tage’s direction, seeming almost stunned by what she’d just done, before ducking her head, muttering a soft "excuse me", and racing into the back of the store.
Tage was so busy trying to not laugh that she didn’t notice Halp’s approach until he suddenly bonked her on top of the head. "What'd you have to go and do that for? You scared her off."
"I'm sorry," Tage replied, gasping and rubbing the top of her head. "But you should have seen your face!" Now that the baker was gone, Tage couldn’t help but succumb to another fit of the giggles.
Halp glowered for a moment, before laughing a bit himself. "Yeah, I bet it was funny. That was very unexpected!"
In truth, the baker's actions weren't just unexpected, they were completely unprecedented. The thought kept bouncing around in the back of Tage's head as the three of them moved out of the shop, heading to a park to enjoy the baker's specialty bread. Where had that come from?
There were always players like Halp who insisted on flirting with every cute girl they saw, so the NPCs had to be able to realistically react to situations like that. But, in all her time playing games, Tage had never seen an NPC initiate anything even remotely romantic with a player. Up until that moment, it hadn't even occurred to her that it might be possible. After all, the NPCs were, well, NPCs. True romance with a player was simply beyond their scope.
Halp seemed perfectly content to forget that fact, and soon enough it seemed that even her kiss had slipped his mind. Tage, however, couldn't forget it. She felt her eyes continually being drawn to Ripley as they finished the bread, stood up, and began to make their way out of the city.
